One-acts plays by Samuel Beckett are paired with original music compositions performed by Cygnus Ensemble in Sounding Beckett, getting a Sept. 14-23 Off-Broadway engagement.

Kathleen Chalfant
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The new music pieces by contemporary composers are "written expressly in response" to the plays being performed — Footfalls, Ohio Impromptu and Catastrophe, all from late in Beckett's career, 1975 to 1982.

The cast includes award-winning actors who are stars in the Washington, DC, theatre community: Phillip Goodwin, Ted van Griethuysen and Holly Twyford, along with the voice of the Tony-nominated and Drama Desk and two-time Obie Award-winning actress Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America, Wit).

The evening had its roots in a one-night-only event directed by Zinoman at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC., in March, when Ohio Impromptu, performed by Ted van Griethuysen, was followed by composer Dina Koston's work "Distant Intervals," performed by Cygnus Ensemble. The experience has now been expanded.

Zinoman said in a statement, "When asked to pair these plays with composers and musicians inspired by modernists, it seemed like a natural fit. Filled with disembodied spirits and doppelgangers, Beckett's tiny masterpieces are brimful of silences and sounds — of pacing and knocking and what Beckett himself called 'the distant sound of applause.'" Beckett's niece, Grace Bouton, who attended the Library of Congress event and participated in a pre-show discussion, will join Zinoman for a similar Q&A following the Sounding Beckett performance on Sunday, Sept. 16.